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"The times, they are a changing."

ESPatch Oct 5, 2008 0 comments

How many blogs must a man write down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, ‘n’ how many seeds must a white (gardening) glove nail
Before the bermuda is canned?
Yes, ‘n’ how many times must I post a dragonfly
Before I’m forever banned? (from the livejournal “gardening forum”)
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

“Heeeee! cooler temps”!

“Hahaaa, cloud cover!”.
I love these two little clay guys, I picked them up at the Great Outdoors a couple of years ago. Pretending that the carrot head is biting down on my finger, followed by the customary “ow, ow, owing” just never seems to get old in my household, (a big white van will pull up soon). The detail on these wall ornaments still amuses me, right down to the tiny little bug that resides on the carrot. Okay the the Skip Richter comparison is a bit of a stretch, but come on, you can see the “down to earth” resemblance in the eyes, when Skip laughs, can’t you? (Sorry Skip)!

“ESP is a sick and twisted little man”.

The times really do feel like they are finally changing the last few days. The winds of fall change are upon us after a particularly brutal summer. These backlit canna lilies, in all their blazen glory, are showing the first signs of their impending crusty demise, a true pointer that colder weather is lurking around the corner.

Canna lily look like a feather? …so bad!

The honey bees are going crazy on the Amaranth which is in full flight right now. In Greece, the Green Amaranth (Amaranthus viridis) is called “vleeta” and it’s a popular dish. It’s boiled, then served with olive oil and lemon like a salad, usually alongside fried fish. Greeks stop harvesting the (usually wild-grown) plant when it starts to bloom at the end of August.

Sticking with the purples, the Mexican bush sage (this sage is native to Central America and Mexico) is putting on quite a show right now in my front yard. I have the regular (left) and the the bicolored cultivar (right). This one has to fight a little harder due to its’ slightly shadier position under my vitex, as such, it tends to be a little …

…ahem,
leggier?

Another hot item right now is the Mexican fire bush blooms.

On a cooler note, a recently watered canna leaf. I wish I could say it was real rain, but I have forgotten what that is.

Some more fake rain on the papyrus.

The blooms on this philippine violet always cool down a scene. The plant is native to India and Burma and is related to the shrimp plant and the ruellia, or Mexican petunia. This plant to me, just has a little more class!
Fantastic fall plant, mine typically gets to about 4ft tall, with great, and I mean great foliage color, before and after the bloom. Note to brain…I need to get a few more of these.

Why you little spiny orb weaver you!
The spiny orb-weavers Gasteracantha are a type of spider. They are also commonly called Spiny-backed orb-weavers, due to the prominent spines on their abdomen. These spiders can reach sizes of up to 30mm in diameter (measured from spike to spike).
Less prominent this year, these little chaps remind me of beach-buggys or..

Atv’s. You have to admit that this little spider looks seriously rugged, stylish and off-road sporty. The “Top Gear” guys would be proud. (BBC America)

Other sightings in the yard this week:

This was the smallest and youngest anole that I have ever seen, on my pond cattails. This little dinosaur was extremily shy, he kept running around the opposite side of the cattail as soon as the lens came anywhere close. I did manage to coax it into a couple of shots. Click then click again for a close up.

I would love an identification of this dragon – brown all the way.

This tropical water lily smells as purple as it looks. If the color purple had an aroma it would be this!

The color of this “warty” pride of barbados
seed pod caught my attention.

Golden bamboo as it looks through
our front window…great in the wind!

Stay tuned for:
“Costa Del Orbit”

"No More Iced Turbans for me?"

ESPatch Sep 21, 2008 0 comments

Ahhh, I can sense that the Summer is finally giving up its sweaty grip, we actually
switched off our air-conditioning the other night, the sheer anarchy!

This cooling image of water beading on the underside of some shell ginger,
reminded me to hang up my turbans in the shed for next summers sweat fest.
Staying with shell ginger…has anyone seen the size of the ginger outside
of bookpeople, on Lamar? Wow!

It was so hot this past summer, even the blue jays
have been pulling out their feathers, in an attempt
to keep cool.

The heat also attracted some of the more exotic species of chameleons into the back yard, I believe this variety is referred to as the “Blue Beaded Long Tongue.”

Looking up into the giant timber bamboo. This particular bamboo has grown a tremendous amount this year, it has hoisted up five new culms this summer. My oldest giant timber at the back of the property has not grown a single culm! Very odd.

When young, the culms are covered in this white powdery
substance – I believe it may be silica?

“Aha! so that is vere my snap-on spare collar vent to”!
The sheath surrounds the culm, then gradually unfurls and drops off, as the culm matures.

Here is the same bamboo bed with a mass planting of Hoja Santa.

And now for something completely different...

This was to be the morning, the morning I was to reach for my
lumberjack shirt in my closet, the morning I was to ready my axe,
the morning I was to cut down the Agave beanstalk!
I have been striding over it, Limbo dancing under it, and
practicing balance beam on it for way too long.
Today is a day for felling!

TIMBER!!!

I was surprised how easy it was to cut down and also how light the whole thing was. Even though I am not very tall (about 2 1/2 feet) I had absolutely no trouble cutting, or carrying the trunk. For some reason I had thought that the trunk was still feeding the attached pups, but, looking at the trunk interior I think this stopped quite some time ago. I have needlessly be hurdling up my back yard for nothing! I guess the exercise can’t hurt.

Here is the severed pole…mmm…now what to do with it? Tossing the Caber anyone?

I decided to store it next to it’s offspring, which are all doing well, – a fitting end!
So if any Austin bloggers want to pick some agave plants fresh from the stalk, swing by and help yourself to one ot two, ten or twenty!
Perhaps the stalk will last until the Oct 19th get together, if it does, it will be manditory for you all to take at least
ten each! (Thanks Pam for “including” me in this event).
Oh and Vicki, dysfunctionality is a given at the east-side-patch **smiles**

Now to extract that agave carcass, where is my half shovel?
“Say AAAAHHHH”

The wizened base of the dead agave looks like the underside of a giant mushroom.

With a considerable amount of shoving and hacking, the giant octopus was finally landed on deck.

Sir David Attenborough:
“Here we are in the middle of the Nabooboo forest where we can observe a tribal member of the Na,Na,Nabooboo tribe wearing an agave carcass as a ceremonial headdress”. It is widely believed that these headdresses were adorned to signify a “bad hair day” to the rest of the tribe.”

Ground zero of the agave site, the extraction turned out to be quite destructive, it looks like a shock wave has hit the nearby terrain of succulents.

I caught this swallowtail laying eggs on one of my small citrus trees. They are always so easily spooked, it is hard to get a good detailed photograph of them. I stood quietly at this citrus for 10 minutes, looking certifiably mad, and these were the best I could do.

A good reason to grow a few citrus trees though.

“Get a grip Spock, you are chief science officer,
I have told you before, this is a swallowtail
butterfly from Earth, not “Q” in one of his disguises”.

“Captain you always help me to quell these illogical
human emotions.”

Amaranth going bezerk, this one is particularly huge, it is now working on growing the long purple seed pods. A great fall show.
Amaranth is an abbreviated term for the members of genus amaranthus (family Amaranthaceae). Amaranth (Amaranthus) has a colorful history, the Aztecs made a mixture into idols that were eaten in their sacrifices and religious rituals. Because of this the Spanish conquistadors abolished amaranth to eliminate the sacrifices. So the plant was lost for hundreds of years. Only to a few out of way places used it and thus saved it for us.

Amaranth? Amaranth? Yes, we must ban the plant with the
silly seed heads!