succulents

“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:

Stay Tuned for:

“Ho Ho Ho-ja Santa!”

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“The Golden Ticket”

ESPatch Dec 9, 2010 19 comments

The anticipation of Christmas has definitely mounted this week in the Patch, our tree was once again pulled out of my garden shed and plugged in – (I love trees that are already pre-wired with lights…thanks China!). Small hands eagerly grappled with shiny ornaments tucked tight in dusty boxes. These nimble fingers made fast work out of decorating the tree to the point that it is now more reminiscent of an ornament than an actual tree. I was really happy that all the decorations were okay this year though, as I am every year since the rat incident of 2006, but I refuse to talk about that particularly “troubled time”.

To further the premature Christmas excitement, these eagerly awaited advent calendars arrived in the post from my parents in Scotland. Each December day has a small serrated window housing a chocolate and some small festive pictures, these calenders amazingly arrived exactly on the first day of December…the first boxes were immediately opened and the chocolates devoured in seconds, my youngest then proceeded to have a complete meltdown, grappling with the whole concept of only one-a-day restraint. He had apparently turned into Augustus Gloop.

A couple of days later I found a contraption with a blanket crudely strewn over it, in the corner of his room…

…he had secretly fabricated a rudimentary time machine, and according to his advent calendar, successfully transported himself five days ahead into the future, apparently eating the small chocolate treats steadily as he pushed the time-forward lever with his non-sticky hand. Naturally I destroyed the contraption in true Luddite fashion and the calender is now brought down on a daily basis from a very high place, although I am convinced he is planning something…I found these conceptual sketches yesterday hidden inside a “levitate in a day” book under his bed…

Moving on…

The new “don’t pick up the leaves until they have totally finished dropping” policy in the Patch is really stretching my patience to its limits!

“Hold…Hold…Hold…”

I want so badly to clean it all up. I am wading through leaves waste deep at this point, and I have lost my son so many times of late that I now attach a line of garden twine around his waist every time he goes out to play, a slightly inhibiting aggravation on his part, but a necessity. I refuse to lose him, and I am well aware that the Naboo are food deprived at this time of the year, if you catch my cannibalistic aversive drift.

I am not sure how much longer I can hold out with this new Patch clean-up policy?

“Ach! Typical! I canna bulieve ye would just gi-up mun…Ye canna…”

Oh Shut your pie-hole William.

The blue white hue on the margin of this agave is looking very frosty at the moment.

And etched into the side of the same agave – a ring wraith!

Some type of borer?

“Frodo you have to get the ring out of the Patch, the black riders are close”

Although the yard is knee-deep in decaying brown leaves and pecan nuts, I am taking some colorful solace in a few hotties still gracing these cold days and colder nights: It is the age of the pinks! (okay, enough Middle-Earth references for one post!)

Although a little disheveled looking this stock tank of King Tut papyrus with the now bright pink celosia around the perimeter is like a crackling fire (of Mordor) on these cool crisp days. The celosia colors have now transcended into the unreal, the psychedelic. No color correction or saturation enhancement required on these photographs.

Ice plants always respond to the crisper cold weather conditions with their almost fake looking blooms, I am still trying to determine if I even like this plant aesthetically. It is an anomaly to me, should I like it? Well it does bloom when blooms are stark, it does spread fast, but the question remains, do I really like it? I cannot seem to decide.

The moisture in this photograph is naturally not natural, oh no, we have had no rain in Central Texas for quite some time – when DID we last have any substantial rain?

As a result, this is a common sight right now…

Plants are stressing like it is summer! Cooler weather yes, but so little moisture, and winds drying things out even more. I am watering my containers a lot more then I should be at this time of year, I caught this parched golden bamboo barely in the nick of time. My in-ground weeping bamboos have also felt the dry-pinch, requiring additional water to pull them through…it is December!

More pinks are emerging from my shrimp plants which are incredibly leggy this year.

And this…

“Queen Elizabeth”

Sedum spurium

or Dragon’s Blood Stonecrop is in her colorful prime – flushing dark red as the year draws to an end.

“Much better than that potato that other chappy brought me ESP!”

Finally…

My butterfly vine continues to amaze me with these bronze butterfly seeds.

Oh, and just in case you thought that you had escaped the Patch without something tickling your gag valve this week,

“I cannot look”…

you are naturally incorrect…

Yes folks those are eggs, I do not care to find out what horror is transpiring in this bucket grabbing scene.

On that wretched note I will leave you with a few more refreshing things I have meandered upon in the course of writing this post:

Inspirational images of the week:

Living Ornaments:

“Forest Floor” glass ornament created by San Francisco designer Flora Grubb. Lichens, moss, feathers and seeds cushion a living Tillandsia air plant inside a tiny glass ball.

And here are some unique gardening utensils from Cal Lane…but the decomposed granite would fall right on through!

Eyebrows would be raised if I turned up to an installation and pulled this wheelbarrow down from my trusty steed!

Okay just one more…

Anarchy In The UK?