Propagation

“Bread Rock”

ESPatch Apr 1, 2010 18 comments

Gross Post Alert!…Gross Post Alert!

The stench inside this cavern I cannot put into words, for fear of involuntary retching over my laptop keyboard once again just remembering it (mops side of mouth with Kleenex). It really was the most diabolical combination of fermented sweet and sour, and I am not talking about a kimchee – esque aroma, (which I love) oh no! Let me try and explain it, just to get you in the appropriate gag arena: Imagine a sickly sweet pumpkin pudding aroma, combined simply with fizzing rotten chicken (description courtesy of my oldest hobbit, minus the fizzing), it also had the texture of moist bread! (Burp… starts to look around worried).

This nasty cavern, (caverns being a popular post-topic recently in the Patch), was created as I started to examine this thing of immaculate beauty…

My largest

Colocasia

or giant elephant ear. Granted it is looking more like the painful stump of an elephant’s foot right now, but not for long, not for long at all!

I have left this tuber in the ground for the past four years, no problem, but this year’s prolonged cold winter temperatures had apparently taken their squishy toll. I prodded it, my hobbits prodded it, it started to ooze flesh, this could not be good. Then we all prodded it some more. Remember the infamous scene in poltergeist when the paranormal investigator started to touch his face, then proceeded to dig in his fingers and pull off his face?

Well that’s how we got started with this Taro…A prod led to a poke that led to a gouge that…

led to a push…

That led to the Taro finally “giving way” in a scene reminiscent of the horrible resuscitation scene from “The Thing”.

I think we all remember what disgusting “thing” happens next! I digress. When the head of the taro rolled back everyone recoiled and “ewwed” simultaneously, turning our faces away from the smell that hit us like a tsunami of flatulence. A stink horn is a terrible thing (right G?) http://thegerminatrix.com/?p=637 but this rank atrocity came pretty close as far as tickling ones stomach release valve.

“It’s just a rotten Taro ESP, nothing to be scared about”.

If you say so scary Kane! Brrrr

A couple of hours after the decapitation, I reluctantly revisited the carnage and found these tiny iridescent

Dolichopus

flies having a great time, their wings flicking back and forth in sick excitement.

These tiny, tiny flies are really interesting visually, looking like molten metal, their segmented bodies are really quite amazing. This one is about to make a left turn apparently.

Enough nastiness…

What!

Okay I promise that is it on the gross front…

Today was the day to move a rather large rock, a rock that has stayed where it fell from a truck that delivered a large delivery of decomposed granite some time ago.

The rock was wiggled and pried, rotated and shuffled down the slope until it came to rest and leveled in a more appropriate location…Thanks Bob at Draco! http://dracogardens.blogspot.com/ (and “PP” for the pry-bar and strategic leveling).

…right in front of my beautiful gas meter. While I was messing around in this part of the Patch I decided to relocate a plant or twelve, the agave and agave parryi var. truncata all coming from this container:

None of these plants were doing particularly well, buried in the shade of the vines that are slowly coming back into the land of the living.

This area took a real beating when the hole where the Tahoe hit http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2009/09/dude-wheres-my-car/ was being repaired, it received a lot of foot traffic and compaction as the house was repaired and repainted. Here it is the area planted up, the bed also has Mexican bush sage pushing through that will soften the scene and provide good contrast with the agave’s as they mature. The two silver Agave , known as Parry’s agave or mescal agave, are slow-growing agave’s native to Mexico (Sonora), hopefully these will reach their full potential in their new, more sun-loving home.

An old ceder carcass is added for a “Waltons” moment.

Now to wait for the scene to fill-in. There is also a line of tiny transplanted feather grasses in front of the moss boulders, well it wouldn’t be the Patch without them after all!

While all this transplanting and rock shuffling was going on, my Hobbits were being way..way too quite…

They had found my last trowel, (my favorite trowel has been missing for the last couple of weeks), I surmise that somehow it has found it’s way to “Davy Jones’ Locker“ at the bottom of my stock tank fish-pond. Mmm…Now I wonder who would do such a thing?

Apparently the hole was to house a pill bug and this snail, a few leaves were thrown in then the hole back filled.

The raggedy pram makes it into yet another shot. After the hole was filled in, my oldest hobbit went to the back garden to check on her new container garden that she has taken over as manager…

…and things seem to be growing very well. This is all hers!

Moving on…

Snail, cactus and verbena…

Here is the same purple verbena in full flight…

attracting once again the zombie / Thestral eyes of this swallowtail butterfly.

“I see the swallowtail too Harry”

Looking like a glittering harlequin’s hat, the blooms on this ghost plant are really quite involved… when you get up close.

This paper wasp is looking pretty sharp, color coordinated on the blooms of this gopher plant…

and my Mexican lime lives, it lives I tell you! This is the first bit of green it has developed at the base of the trunk. I knew she would pull through!

Tiny seed pods are now replacing the fading blooms of the mountain laurels.

The ESP is jumping further out of winter everyday, the survival of my Mexican lime tree and my Barbados cherry has made my week, even both of my dwarf bottle-brushes are steaming back to life. Although spring usually lasts a matter of hours in Central Texas, I plan to make the most of it…an iced turban will be in my future soon enough after all!

That little sotol in the middle of my circular bed is finally starting to develop a presence!

And finally:

I told you I was not finished with these four “nervous” daisies quite yet.

Inspirational Images of the week:

Anybody visiting Zilker Gardens in Austin last weekend for the plant festival, probably noticed this crazy Texas red bud specimen…

MacCrimmon’s Lament [Song]…Mac Umber

Stay Tuned for:

“If you Mock Orange Me, I’ll Satsum ya!”

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

“Has he Been”?

ESPatch Dec 20, 2009 16 comments

This anole is currently living in our Christmas tree! I tried to get it outside but it just came right back in through one of our many gaps and holes in our walls. I suppose it was finding some “relative” warmth, or perhaps it is just getting into the Christmas spirit, hard to tell. I now spend as much time looking for the anole as I do admiring the tree ornaments. I could have sworn the other night I caught a glimpse of it, deep in the interior of the tree, adorning a small piece of cotton-wool on it’s pronounced chin, whipping a reindeer ornament with it’s tail with a look of Christmas glee on his lizard face…honestly I did!

Here it is making it’s way over the enormous cushion hill to our tree.

The poor anole looks like it might not make it to the holidays, lets just say he did not look well, he was also very skinny, I guess he is not finding too many bugs on our fake Christmas tree! I just hope that it doesn’t drop dead and fall into the presents under the tree. Now that would be unexpected Christmas present on Christmas morning for someone!

Moving On…

These old rusty Christmas bells are what is left of my desert trumpet vine flowers, this vine put on a stunning bloom show this year. In fact…

there is still one bloom left.

So strange that only one bloom still exists on the entire vine, and it is healthy and vibrant, even stranger that this singular bloom has its very own intellectual.

I have checked in on this inhabitant for the last four days. We discuss everything from philosophy to Tiger Woods. It seems this final bloom is this insect’s final vestige for the year, and it was not about to be up-rooted from it’s comfortable purple home.

I am not sure what this turtle-like bug is, but I am pretty sure it can not be as good for the plant as it is a conversationalist.

Talking of something that is not good…

Remember the “giant tongue” from my last post , well there have been some shocking developments on the grosser front. The cow tongue, it appears, has developed a propensity for lapping up red wine from the feeding trough, and judging from the color of it, magnums of it.

Ewww! Ewww! And a rather exaggerated lateral knee motion.

If you want to find out what plant this nasty, curled abomination originated from, you can find the answer hiding in here… http://www.eastsidepatch.com/visual-comparativies/ I think you will be quite surprised. I promise, no more images of this.

I was quite surprised at the details on this holly fern.

Cyrtomium falcatum

I think it may have contracted the plant equivalent of the measles. I turned over the leaf to inspect the pox further.

The leaves on the holly fern are very glossy with a leathery texture, waxy on the surface and lighter colored beneath. I was shocked to see the extent of the infestation.

NERD ALERT…NERD ALERT…

The closer macro inspection of the underside of the leaves revealed that the pox were actually the geometric reproductive spores of the plant. Remarkable. If you want to grow a few hundred holly ferns like I am about to attempt, this is what you do… collect the ripe spores on a piece of paper placed under spore bearing leaves. (Adjusts glasses). You can see a couple of spores on this leaf have already dropped off. Sow spores on damp peat moss in late winter. (they germinate best at a temperature of 68-70 degrees) this is going to be tough to achieve in my drafty “galleon ship” of a house (insert nerdy snort)!

The peat moss should be kept constantly moist and covered with glass or plastic. Once new plants are large enough to handle they can be transplanted into individual containers.

Staying in the same shady bed as the holly fern, my White Wood Sorrel is still putting out it’s ghostly blooms.

My Sorrels always have a growth spurt after I chop down all the Hoja Santa that usually cover them, they appreciate the little extra light.

Here is one of my hacked-back Hoja Santa plants, it is already trying to throw up new shoots, very primordial.

This kale was a freebie from the Natural Gardener. It was handed to my eldest hobbit who proceeded to take it home and plant it in my raised herb and pepper stock-tank with her tiny trowel. When our recent cold snap came she saw me shaking my head here, muttering obscenities over there, as I assessed the damage in the Patch, then she remembered her kale. Her face got serious then it had a look of deep concern as she made her way over to the stock-tank, eagerly peering over the edge.

Naturally the kale was loving the cold weather, there was a squeal of delight as she saw the plant had jumped in size. I saw these rain drops sticking to it and rather predictably started to photograph them to the background rap of “can we eat it yet?…can we eat it yet, Daddy, Can we eat it yet? (repeat 7.5 times), I even started to do some really bad Ali G “mouth” percussion to accompany the monologue just to keep me sane as I took these pictures!

The poor Botox Lady was getting “consumed” by this ice plant. I heard her from inside the house (as, I am sure the whole neighborhood did,) her absurd Austrian accent screaming out into the night air…

“Get it out of mine eyes! ESP, Get zit out, I can’t see”! mutter, mutter, mutter…ESP!

“Jimmy four fingers” … An arthritic rogue finger on my pine cone cactus demanded my attention this week, it tried to pinch my car-keys from my pocket as I tried to alleviate the eye suffering of the Botox Lady with my pruners. It was time to chop off some knuckles in an attempt to grow some more “fingers” in different parts of the Patch.

A nasty gangster affair, granted, but a necessity. I had no choice but to send a message to the rest of the finger-cones.

Here is the first knuckle that I snapped off…the cactus screamed at the loss of one of it’s core digits, like I remotely cared…wait! where is my thumb?

here it is re-planted in my middle succulent and cactus bed. “Fingers” (ahem) crossed, it will sprout roots and grow.

Noticed This Week…

Meyer Lemons, almost ready for the picking.

I have pulled so many dandelions this year, what odd plants they are, annoying, but quite odd.

Another odd-ball is this tiny succulent, it looks like some Ice-Queen’s headdress.

“Call that a headdress”?

Or perhaps not!

Inspirational images of the week, another modern Hobbit hole…

Great Building in Switzerland by Dutch architectural studio in cooperation with SeARCH Studio Christian Muller Architects.

I can see why you would need the fence around the top of it, staggering home with a take-out Christmas curry or a doner kebab from a local alpine lodge could be a little… errr… lethal?

“Merry Christmas!”

From us all here in the East Side Patch!