trees

“Journey to the Center of the Patch”

ESPatch Jan 31, 2010 17 comments

journey_to_the_center_of_the_earth_sequel

“Is there anything left alive in there”? “Look how brown everything is”. “Is that a frozen Naboo tribal member stuck on the Botox lady’s lip”? “This is serious”.

Central Texas is back once again in the grip of yet another cold spell, I knew we were not going to get away with just one killer freeze this year.

I am just really glad that I did not clear out all of the leaves from the top of the hundreds of agave pups that I planted when my agave stalked bloomed over a year ago. It seems this insulating thermal blanket is performing well, when you consider the mushy state of all the agaves in pots that were sitting out in the Patch unprotected…

It is not a pretty seaweedy sight! The ones under the leaves are actually looking pretty good, but I will keep an eye on them for any sign of them rotting under their brown blanket.

And the less said about the poor old browned sago palms the better. Even the poor Botox lady has had more cold temperatures than she can endure, she now resembles one of the survivors on the movie “Alive”, I won’t mention her frost bitten lip. She is also having a hard time getting her words out, something that right now I am appreciating. All my sago palms are still alive though so I should probably not complain. I have seen so many younger ones around Austin that are now corpses in their own container coffins. RIP.

So what is the best thing to do when the cold creeps into the ahem,…bones?

“Pull a ridiculous face like this ESP ? (strikes pose)… long-johns perhaps”?

No Dr McCoy…

some mindless moving of rocks from one place to another of course.

This area has been irritating me for longer than I care to remember. These sunken Home Depot stones, I have to say, I have come to hate. What started out as a “mmm, thats quite nice, look how they form a circle and frame the stock tank like that,” to… “those have to be the most ugly and badly laid bricks ever to grace humanity.” They also give me an unpleasant “commercial” taste in my mouth, oh no, this was going to have to change, and change it will today. I looked around the Patch and started to find a bunch of buried river rocks hidden under piles of leaves around my pond area, rocks that were about to disappear due to the natural passage of time and debris build-up. I had rediscovered them just in the nick of time.

I decided to leave the Home Depot rocks exactly where they were and just built up these rocks on top of them (shhhh), with a little help from my day laborer, naturally, it worked out a treat. This area is slowly starting to work, the silver color of the feeder tank and the blue river rocks reference the color of the agave and Arizona cypress ‘Blue Ice’ tree. The dark blue of the container and background piece of fencing adding depth to the scene.

And looking from the other side, a mirrored agave (a pup) and more dark blue from the “fish on the hill.”

Mmm, to remove this flagstone or not? What do you think?

Now… if I can only find a way to remove that label from the stock tank I will sleep well again, knowing that this area has been fully addressed, at least for now. I am a firm believer that the adhesive used on these “Callahan’s” tank labels actually was reversed engineered from…

“Click, clack, chirp, chirp fuddy dunster” …or translated: “Look, He has discovered our rather stubborn adhesive George, our master plan is working. All he needs to do now is analyze it’s molecular structure, only then will he reveal the true secret of the…….!”

I cannot believe how many of these river rocks were hiding in the center of the Patch. I need quite a few more to cover this entire area, but you get the general idea, very Brighton Beach…anyway I feel better.

Feeling cold? I strongly suggest hauling a bunch of river rocks from one place to another, it really does work.

While I was in this ancient, moving rock, Egyptian mode, I did notice a bunch of these tiny grasses springing up down the edge of my moss boulders that line my pathways. Yes, my Mexican feather grasses have sown a new generation, and I cannot wait to transplant them all around the patch. I love this little grass. I will wait until these babies get larger in the granite before digging them up and reorganizing them into positions more appropriate.

A plant that has remained greener than green despite these harsh ungreening conditions has been this containerized horsetail reed.

Equisetum hyemale

Backlit from the low winter sun, it seems like it is in its prime right now, so green and irritatingly (to the rest of my plants,) healthy. The evergreen stems are particularly noticeable in winter, providing a welcome relief from all things brown. They also make the best Harry Potter wands available anywhere in the Diagon-Alley-Patch.

“Now you tell me”.

The blush on these small cacti seems to have intensified this winter.

So-far-so-good on the barrel cactus front, these lethal anemones appear to be holding up to Jack “irritating” Frost pretty well. Got to love that hat, I bet she keeps tortillas under there!

Can you be anymore irritating!

I will finish up with another rather sharp character…

…and a crisp story in the Patch…

Inspirational image of the week:

Office garden pods. What a great place to compose a post!

http://www.officepod.co.uk/

Stay Tuned for:

“Bottom of ze Barrel”

All material © 2009 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“2010”

ESPatch Dec 29, 2009 10 comments

2010 started eerily in the Patch…

I walked outside this morning only to find this other-worldly mist sweeping in, and it was dense. The other thing odd about this morning was that it was very quite, unusually quite in fact. I clambered further into my timer bamboo for a better look at this strange phenomena.

I peered through the giant timber culms and heard a muffled sound, I squinted into the dense fog then recoiled as I witnessed my neighbor being attacked by something over the garden fence, something hideous…something that came from…from….inside

The Mist!

Eeek, Eeek, Eeek!

Okay, so the mist actually turned out to be nothing more than steam emanating from the washing machine duct, and my neighbor? Well that was the last I saw of him.

The Giant timber near the house has climbed to a significant height, you can really see it this time of year when the surrounding pecans have died back. Have I told you how I can’t wait to get rid of these trees, and that stubborn sticker on the stock tank?

This Timber Bamboo is already prematurely celebrating it’s win over the Pecans by proudly displaying this victory belt around the mid-drift of it’s culm.

Another bamboo patch…

My Buddha’s Belly Bamboo.

Bambusa tuldoides ‘Ventricosa’

Apparently this bamboo only develops the sought after Buddha bellies if it is root bound in a container, well not this one. I do not know what sort of neglect and torture I have inflicted on this plant underground but I have about 64.2% belly culms, (adjusts nerdy glasses) the rest straight. Not bad considering it is planted in the ground. This bamboo has grown a lot in the last year, although all the new culms this year have been frost-nipped and are doubled over. I think this is due to the fact that this bamboo is still an infant, albeit a twenty foot one, (something that makes me shudder with a slight twinge of a neck crick).

Guess what we did this week?

The ground was once again covered in a blanket of seed snow.

Yes, cattail wands were once more frantically casting their seedy spells all over the Patch, streaming tiny seeds up into the thermals…

…and a few others in less welcome places.

“What were the clouds like when you were young”?

The seeds provided all manner of play, when the spells had all been cast, then the shoveling and “cauldron” concoctions were started. I took advantage of the distraction to wander freely around the garden to see what else was happening. The relative peace!

Sedum reflexum

Sedum reflexum ‘Blue Spruce’ (thanks Pam), this little succulent is spreading very nicely in my cacti & succulent bed.

I tuck this plant in wherever I can, usually it ends up between my moss boulders where I invariably trample on it as I am contorting myself into some ridiculous shape to reach “that” dandelion all the way back there, (well that is where they always are, all the way back in there)!

Dandelions I have found, also love to co-exist right up against the spiny fat belly of a barrel cactus or any other flesh ripping plant for protection, like this sotol, “gently does it…easy…just a little more…almost there”…then Snap, you are left only holding only the top of the weed. Aarggh! The recoil motion invariably causes the the back of the “pulling hand” to adhere to an adjacent barrel cactus followed by ten minutes of highly colorful language, twenty-seven if I am alone. I have come to the conclusion, dandelions are smart.

Now where was I? Yes sedum…trampling, anyway this little plant always seems to bounce right back no matter the abuse, a great plant for filling in those small “detail” cavities in the garden.

Moving On…

The life-force continues to coarse through the ivy veins, despite the freezes we are enduring.

Seed-pods on my Thryallis, does this plant ever stop doing something?

Great winter color on the ornamental grasses.

And yes my Artemisia is officially out of control, almost time for the chop.

Question: is there a correct time to cut back this plant? I usually just wait until it is so leggy I cannot stand it anymore.

Even in the depths of winter this lantana is still throwing out spring-like blooms, it’s leaves turning from green to a frost bitten deep maroon now.

Finally…

Here are some winter games in the Patch recorded on my new “Flip”.

The music I created in GarageBand, it features sampled snippets of my oldest hobbit when she was little, finding her very first bug in the garden, and it wasn’t the featured ladybug that caused my youngest’s conniption in the video.

“Ewww”!

Inspirational image of the week:

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best, just as this 3D effect rug called John Deere tractor. Designed by Permafrost, manufactured in Sweden and wool from New Zealand. The inspiration behind this rug came from a common image of rural America, the John Deere tractor.