Seeds

“Two and Two are Four”

ESPatch Jan 6, 2011 6 comments

Happy New Year!

Yes, you guessed it…

During my mammoth leaf clean up I uncovered this inch worm blending into the color and texture of the leaves. Yes the 2011 leaf clean up is officially under way, compost bins are full and the leaf surplus is going out to the street in trash cans every week. Have I told you how much I hate picking up leaves? This year, as I grabbed at endless piles of decaying leaves, I kept thinking irrationally about beaks and assassin bugs, and then more beaks. Now I know that Forrest Gump said he was not going to mention these insects again, but these predators hunt in such environments! (And my environment was perfect, a good two feet deep with leaves in places),surely it was only a matter of time before I was mortally wounded ?

“Ach ESP, what would ye ken aboot being mortally woun…”

“Ach, hauld yer whisht, William.”

It is funny how the mind wanders onto the strangest subjects when performing the most mundane of jobs. Where was I? Inchworms…Inchworms, the small caterpillars made famous in songs,

cartoons and 70’s advertisements. This product by Hasbro must surely have ergonomically imbued an entire generation with some later-in-life, lower-back issues?

Most worms are quite odd but these chaps rank up there with land planarians on the freaky scale, inchworms, despite the name, are not worms at all, they are caterpillars, which are moth larvae. Much like spiders, some inch worms have the ability produce thin delicate lines of silk like this one.Inchworms are the larvae of moths of the family Geometridae, Geometrid means “earth-measurer” in Greek and as Danny Kaye points out, inchworms are called this because it looks like they are measuring the ground (and marigolds), an inch at a time.

Geometridae is a large, and very cosmopolitan group with over 1,200 species indigenous to North America.

Oh yes, they are many.

Also called measuring worms, spanworms, and loopers, inchworms lack appendages in the middle portion of their body like most caterpillars, causing them to have their bizarre characteristic looping gait. If an inchworm is disturbed, it will stand motionless on it’s back legs and this makes it look like a small projection on the tree. The species Nemoria has mottled brown projections along their bodies to resemble bits of dead leaves and bark.

Due to their ferocious appetite inchworms are considered pests in the garden, especially if you are a fruit or vegetable gardener. Rumor has it that young Naboo children now ride on the backs of these worms after the tribe obtained a tiny and extremely rare hardback copy of Frank Herbert’s “Dune”.

Like most insects and caterpillars, I usually give them as wide a birth as an assassin bug, unless they start turning up in plague-like numbers.

Talking of plague-like numbers…

What manner of infestation is this?

After traveling a short distance to start a new colony, (they are poor fliers) flying termites shed their wings (you can see this process has started above) by using their rear legs to detach them from its wing stumps, brrr.

This exodus is referred to as a dispersal nuptial flight, it is commonly referred to as swarming. These alates (winged) termites suddenly appeared on one of my decomposed granite pathways of all places, which is much preferred to when I last saw these critters, streaming out of the walls of my house! : http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2010/04/7888/

At that time I was concerned…were they eating my house?

There are lots of misconceptions about flying termites or termite alates. Some people think these flying termites can attack wood, The truth is, these flying termites are winged reproductives that comprise either males or females whose sole purpose is to start new colonies and become the future king and queen of their new colony.

At certain times of the year, a termite colony will produce these future kings and queens to take part in a pre-nuptial flight in synchrony with other colonies of the same species. This happens for most of the matured colonies of the same species in a particular area usually after a rain after a long dry period; young colonies do not produce alates because of the resources required to nurture them to maturity and then release them.

These flying termites are fed some of the best food the nest has to offer and well taken care of until the big day. As such, they are loaded with fat stores designed to last them for a few months, until the first batch of eggs hatch into workers who will then forage for food. These flying termite swarms do not threaten your home or are dangerous or aggressive in any way whatsoever, very few survive to start a new colony.

Moving on…

My cardboard palms

Zamia furfuracea

are now actually looking like a UPS delivery after the few freezes we have had. I should cut them back to the ground, but I like the furry cardboard look, at least for the time being. Cardboard palms belong to the Cycad family, it is native to the warm sandy coastal plains of Mexico and is a common landscape item in tropical and sub-tropical areas all over the world. Mine die to the ground every year but always return in the spring, this is one tough plant.

Watch out if you have pets, the cones / seeds that this plant develops are extremely sweet smelling and extremely toxic to dogs, in fact all parts of this plant are toxic, and is probably why they have survived and are called ‘living fossils’. Even though mine never get a chance to get huge like they do in more temperate zones, they still set small seed cones, here is a picture from last year:

Look how big this plant can get in Florida!

Staying with large specimen plants, I recently went to a wedding at the Fours Seasons Hotel in Austin and came face to face with this mature Fatsia Japonica…

…and it was in full bloom, though surprisingly lacking in flies, I think it may have been too cold that day.

My soft leaf yucca has had a serious growth-spurt over the last year, her hair turning into ground-hugging dreadlocks.

Today was haircut day, I sharpened my utensils, and wearing long sleeves (naturally) set about trimming her spiny scalp…”soft leafed” indeed! Anybody who knows this plant is all too painfully aware that there is nothing “soft-leafed” about it at all. I have to say that I was taken aback when the Botox Lady started to scream out from the adjacent bed: “She vants a weave, ESP! She vants a weave…hey, vat are you doing with those pruners?”

“Just go for it ESP.”

The snow did fall this week in the Patch, well sort of:

As you can probably deduce from this picture, the cattails have finally split this week in the Patch,

and to the delighted squeals of my halflings, they produced plenty of seed snow, which is as close as we usually get to the real McCoy here in central Texas.

“You know? I am actually okay with that ESP.”

Finally:

I also had a “close encounter” (ahem) with this interesting old tomatillo husk as I was cleaning up the leaves, and I have to come to the conclusion that picking up leaves is not so bad! I have witnessed all manner of creatures after all, assassin bugs, inch worms, flying termites, creatures I would probably not have seen unless I had had my nose buried in the leaves, I even witnessed some bizarre husk architec…oh, who am I kidding?…

…of course –

I STILL HATE IT!

Stay Tuned for:

“Anchor’s aweigh”

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intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant) 14th century planet Earth techniques.

“I Caught a Live One!”

ESPatch Dec 22, 2010 4 comments

In 1977 NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft launched into space carrying phonographs called the Golden Records containing pictures and sounds meant to show extraterrestrials a glimpse of life on Earth and where we are located in space. Credit: NASA

“This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours”.

President Jimmy Carter

clack…click, click..etc.etc.

(“So that’s where they live! Buckle up lads, “beaks” at the ready, these humans are almost all liquid already so save your enzymes!”)

What are the chances?…Last week I found a dead wheel bug on the Patch steps, then, who did I see slowly (and I mean slowly) walking across a new pathway I was laying at a client’s house?

No wonder that “beak” is so painful if it spikes an unsuspecting hand, look at that thing, lethal…a fact I was very conscious of, as my camera hand almost touched this very “Alien” looking assassin bug.

“Game over, man, game over!…”

It was also using it’s beak to probe the ground as it walked. If you look really carefully you can see the 2nd set of eyes behind the main ones, oh yes, with a creature as bizarre as this, two eyes would just be way too normal? I was happy though, to finally get to see one of these insects in motion…slow motion.

“And that’s all I gotta to say about them wheel bugs Jenny”.

“That’s a good thing Forrest…we were all kinda tired of hearing about them assassins anyways.”

“Jeennny”!

Moving On:

Ornamental grasses have their brown and purple winter clothes on, even though we touched the mid-eighties this week in the Patch. (Sorry all my UK readers).

The brown and purple colors in this dwarf miscanthus contrast well with the silver of artemesia.

The seed heads form many different shapes,

and look great set against shady areas, in areas they can catch the sun…Texas snow.

With the warmer temperatures this week, my Madame Ganna Walska decided to throw out what has to be the final water lily of the year (I keep saying this, I know I do). The purple on the lily is much more pronounced at this time of year as it is on this…

…oh, I don’t need to tell you by now! I really should put these fallen celosia on the compost pile, but there are seeds in there, seeds I tell you…

“Hey, get off that swing seat…there is shelling to be done”!

We have all gathered so much celosia seed this year I now use the prospect of more shelling as a threat, that and the ever vigilant Santa, naturally! …“Clean up your toys NOW, or do you want to shell a tray’s worth”?

…Works every time.

This festive was a pass-along from Bob at Draco Gardens, it has grown into quite the snow drift. Behind it is…

…one of three basket grasses I have planted in the Patch, this is the oldest one. I like the way this plant looks flanked with prostate rosemary, the rosemary looks great in bloom set against this succulent, it’s pale blue flowers are almost the same color.

Nolina microcarpa

Nolinas are actually members of the Agave family and they are native to the Southwestern U.S.

They easy to grow, heat & drought tolerant, evergreen, deer proof, not fussy about soil & hardy down to 10 degrees F, what more can we ask for? It is amazing how underutilized these succulents are in our landscapes, they look excellent when planted in raised beds and allowed to “spill” over the edge like this one. Nolina microcarpa requires absolutely no Summer water once established. The leaves were used by Native Americans for weaving baskets & mats, hence the common name.

After last years prolonged freezes I was sure these unprotected barrel cacti would be for the compost pile, but I was wrong. They had a little discoloration on their marginal edges but other than that, they were surprisingly just fine, even the little ones. These leaves are going to be a joy to pick up.

Finally:

“Winter” in the Patch: