Ornamental Grasses

“You Can’t Handle the Tooth!”

ESPatch Jan 28, 2012 7 comments

As it turned out, I couldn’t.

The tooth fairy will be fluttering into the Patch tonight, let me back up a little.

She came home, sticking her tongue behind her front tooth, forcing it forward to a particularly unnatural angle (which looked completely ridiculous). She quietly asked me how I used to pull out my loose teeth when I was a kid. I barely finished telling her when she came back from the kitchen, sat beside me, reached into her mouth with a paper towel and tugged…

Not thinking she would actually go through with my “procedure”, her actions took me by complete surprise…”pop”!

I believe I was wincing more then her, the sound of her tooth exiting her gum had me up and about, involuntary performing a silly walk around my front room.

Quickly changing the subject…

After receiving a recent dowsing of rain (just shy of four inches) in classic Texas gully-washer fashion, these Gothic toadstools emerged overnight.

Calm down Bella!

This one was particularly disgusting, but I have had a lot worse in the Patch…who could forget this:

http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2009/04/my-sweet-olive-oil/

Another fast responder to the rains are the

oxalis,

Fatsia Japonica and

my Persian ivy.

Weeds have also responded positively to a “wee-nip” of the wet stuff…

I have been pulling out massive amounts of dandelions and a bunches of these

Erodium cicutarium

or Redstem Storks Bill (the fruit of the plant resembles a bird’s beak).

Not a bad looking weed really. The finely divided leaves and rosette growth habit are distinctive features of this winter annual weed.

I was also informed by Patricia that traditionally a leaf tea from the plant was used to induce sweating and as a diuretic. The leaves have also been put to use in the bathtub to help treat rheumatism.

Thanks for this Patricia.

Now where is my trowel?

Bluebonnets, poppies, blood-stained celosia and more weeds are battling it out in the Hellstrip

it looks like it will be a good show come the spring.

These feather grasses are in desperate need of a good grooming

and gopher plants are ready to be cut back.

The new central growth offers a good reminder of when it is time for some pruning. I generally wait until the older longer stalks start to look really bad before I attack them. Be sure to wear gloves, the sap from this plant can be quite an irritant…I found out the hard way:

http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2010/11/“i-decapitated-a-gopher”/

Moving on:

Lots of purple and pinks showing up this week in the Patch…lantana and artemesia ‘Powis Castle’.

Desert trumpet blooms do not last long on the vine with snaggletooth around.

Finally:

Back to the rock tumbling…snort

I am relieved to say that we have passed onto the final stage…polishing. Every time he lifts the lid to this cooler and rock tumbler he emits the same refrain: “Phew, that stinks!”…and it really does.

No need to call the authorities, this is the aluminum oxide polish going into the drum.

and here are the rounded stones pre-polishing.

Now to wait yet another ten days, it is a long process this rock tumbling business and it is testing my patience almost as much as “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”…I said almost.

I will leave you with this image outside a restaurant in east Austin:

Chickens going to roost.

Stay Tuned for:

“Peas in a Pod”

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

Inspirational Image of the week:

“Just Leaf it Alone”

ESPatch Jan 8, 2012 14 comments

Some rather exuberant New Years firework antics succeeded in igniting the same sago palm as last year, (somewhat of a tradition at this point).

This year, the pyrotechnics also successfully singed a few of my ornamental grasses:

Our “Grand Finale” firework that was placed ceremoniously and somewhat precariously on top of a bucket on top of a trashcan provided quite the spectacle. I was intending to take some pictures of it but the firework simultaneously ignited four of my Mexican feather grasses and had us grabbing buckets from my “everything but the kitchen sink” water collection “system” to extinguish the fires before they reached the Barbados cherry and butterfly iris.

I will keep an eye on these blackened grasses, they may respond well to the singeing.

An exciting week this week in the Patch…

…yes folks, snort, I am proud to announce

that we have finally moved onto the “medium-fine” silicon carbide abrasive rock tumbling phase,

though not before she had another sneak-peek at the now shiny rocks.

Next week the polishing process begins,

I am already having difficulty sleeping in anticipation.

Moving more honestly on:

Now here is a strange thing:

I have been trying to figure out what these pine-cone cacti reminded me of for a long time.

Tephrocatus articulatus var. diadematus

This week if finally dawned on me, and it was very obscure.

It was the poor maintenance robot in the film AI that was destroyed in the Flesh Fair!…Phew, now I can sleep soundly once again,

Or can I?

As you may know, I have been trying to protect my soft leaf yuccas from the horrors of the

“evil weevil”

by administering copious amounts of diatomaceous earth sprinkled around the base of the plants, it appears to be working.

Unfortunately my yuccas have now developed another issue,

and it isn’t pretty. Several fungi, including Cercospora, Cylindrosporium, and Coniothyrium may cause leaf spotting like this in yuccas but thankfully they do not cause the widespread death of leaves.

I am sure this one contracted the yucca equivalent of the “Phage” in the summer months when it received some overhead watering…remove affected leaves and discard.

This week has had me and my (in-house) pajama crew cleaning up insane amounts of leaves.

We gathered them up in buckets, transferred them to trashcans and piled them up wherever we could find space. I hate picking up leaves.

One personal pet peeve is cleaning out the hearts of the sagos,

this activity ranks on my irritation scale at a steady 9.5

It is really nice to have my pathways clear once again though.

Finally:

King Tut papyrus is still holding up well in one of my stock-tanks,

not bad form for January.

Rosemary is also doing a great winter job,

feeding the honey bees,

with it’s tiny flowers.

Sweet peas are on the boil,

and pink shrimps are ready for the barbie,

and my artemesia is once again looking healthy.

Driving around the Mueller area the other day, I saw this:

I initially thought these were dwarf conifers. When I realized it was in fact gray santolina or lavender cotton, I swung my steed around and snapped these shots.

Santolina chamaecyparissus

It reminds me of Scottish “heather” in a mass-planting like this. I will try and get some shots of it in bloom next summer…if I remember.

Photograph: Linda Engstrom

And to finish I am happy to report that Kumo is making a speedy recovery after his stomach surgery.

He is now stumbling and walking into things wearing his

collar of shame.

Talking of dwarf conifers…

Inspirational image of the week:

Photograph from Foxhollow Garden, Dorset, England.

Stay Tuned for:

“Igniting the Cattails”

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